捉活的 Take Them Alive Not Dead
頃刻間，龜鱉黿鼉、鯁鮊鱖鯉與蝦兵蟹卒等各執槍刀，一齊吶喊，騰出水晶宮外，擋住犀牛精。犀牛精不能前進，急退後，又有井、角二星並大聖攔阻。慌得他失了群，各各逃生，四散奔走，早把個辟塵兒被老龍王領兵圍住。孫大聖見了心歡，叫道：「消停，消停，捉活的，不要死的。」摩昂聽令，一擁上前，將辟塵兒扳翻在地，用鐵鉤子穿了鼻，攢蹄綑倒。顷刻间，龟鳖鼋鼍、鲠鲌鳜鲤与虾兵蟹卒等各执枪刀，一齐呐喊，腾出水晶宫外，挡住犀牛精。犀牛精不能前进，急退后，又有井、角二星并大圣拦阻。慌得他失了群，各各逃生，四散奔走，早把个辟尘儿被老龙王领兵围住。孙大圣见了心欢，叫道：「消停，消停，捉活的，不要死的。」摩昂听令，一拥上前，将辟尘儿扳翻在地，用铁钩子穿了鼻，攒蹄捆倒。
逐句解 Line by line
In a moment, turtles and terrapins, soft-shells and river-lizards, carp and culter, mandarin fish and bream, with the shrimp soldiers and crab troops, each took spear or sabre in hand, and shouted all together, and came pouring out of the water-crystal palace to block the rhinoceros spirits.
The Dragon King's army, and it is a fishmonger's slab. Eight named creatures in eight characters, then the shrimp soldiers and crab troops who turn out for every underwater battle in this book. Among them is 鮊, a whitefish or culter, read bó and not the commoner sound the reading machinery reaches for. The comedy is deadpan: these are the ranks of a real navy and they are all things you could buy at a market.
The rhinoceros spirits could not get forward, and fell back in haste — and there again were the Well and Horn stars and the Great Sage barring the way.
The trap closes, and it closes because the Dragon King's household happened to be in the way. 攔阻 — to bar and block. They are caught between an army in front and three pursuers behind.
So frightened were they that they lost the pack and scattered, each to save his own life, and made off in four directions; and Dust-Averting was straight away hemmed in by the old Dragon King at the head of his troops.
失了群 — lost the herd. It is a word for cattle and it is doing double duty: they have literally scattered, and they are literally oxen. 慌得 is the frightened-so-that shape, with the light de between the fear and its effect — the same frame that took Tripitaka's legs from under him two batches ago.
The Great Sage saw it and his heart rejoiced, and he called out, "Steady, steady! Take them alive — I do not want them dead."
The order that shapes the rest of the chapter. 捉活的，不要死的 — take the live ones, not the dead ones. He wants them alive because he wants them tried, which is the ending this chapter is walking towards. Both uses of 的 here are the light one that hooks a description to a noun.
Mo'ang heard the order, and rushed up in a body, tipped Dust-Averting over on the ground, ran an iron hook through his nose, and trussed his hooves together and threw him down.
The capture, and it is done exactly the way you would handle a bullock. 用鐵鉤子穿了鼻 — put an iron ring through the nose, which is what a nose-ring is for. 攢蹄 is to draw the four hooves together for tying, and the first character is read cuán rather than the everyday sound it has when it means to save up money. And 倒 is dǎo, to go over. A demon king has become livestock in twenty characters.
The turn of the whole chase, and it turns because of geography rather than prowess. The rhinoceroses ran into the sea because they cannot bear to be dirty. The sea belongs to a Dragon King whose household turns out at a word. So the creatures that fled to their own element have fled into somebody else's jurisdiction, and the chapter's argument about authority closes neatly.
The Dragon King's army is one of the novel's steady jokes. Turtles, soft-shell terrapins, river-lizards, carp, culter, mandarin fish and bream, plus shrimp soldiers and crab troops — an order of battle that reads like a menu. The book never winks at it. They shout, they take up spears, and they successfully block three thousand-year-old demons.
And then the capture, described in the flat vocabulary of the stockyard: tipped over, a ring through the nose, hooves drawn together and tied. The novel has been calling these creatures oxen and rhinoceroses for a whole chapter, and here it stops using the language of demon-fighting altogether and uses the language of a man handling cattle.